elodie *18 months*

Oh little miss "e" how you are growing too fast.  It seems like only yesterday it was last summer and you were laying on the blanket in the back yard cooing and staring quietly up at the blue sky.  Now you run, you scream, you have opinions, you feed yourself and climb up on everything, you love books and babies and snuggles and snacks.

You've been on this planet twice as long as you spent in the womb and it is such a pleasure to watch you grow and change and develop into your own unique being.  Here are some updates on what you've been doing lately.

• Talking: you are catching onto new words and intonations all the time.  Currently these are the words you know and use regularly: apple, bubble, push (for the swing), up, no, uh-uh, Eleanor, Dada, Mama, wawa (water), pza (pizza), chs (cheese), ouch, mouth, nose, Ethel, ba (for book or bird), shs (shoes), more, ma (for binky), bus.  It seems like you are good at repeating the sounds of words back to us if we say them to you.  We were walking home yesterday and you were pointing at everything, I said "red car, blue truck" and then you made the sounds like you were trying to figure out how to say them.  You love to sing and make sounds and "talk" all the time now especially when you are not being overshadowed by your older sister :)  When you don't use words you still point a lot to communicate and then nod affirmatively or shake your head or say no.  It works pretty well to get your message across.  In addition, although you seemed more go with the flow than Aven ever was as a little one, you have finally realized that you need to speak up for yourself to get your desires met and sometimes that is met with a firm "no" and a funny pinched up face or a high pitched (Daddy calls it sonic) scream.
• Eating: you are such a funny little girl about your food and you seem to like mostly carbs…a few fruits and plenty of dairy.  You would eat cereal, pancakes or crackers all day if I let you along with yogurt, cheese and milk.  You like apples without skin, frozen blueberries, strawberries and bananas sometimes and the rest is hit or miss.  Sometimes you surprise me and like something totally random like pesto crepe or red lentil curry.  You are totally weaned as of 16 1/2 months….it was a natural process and it seems like it was so long ago that you nursed.
• Independence: like many second children you like to play with your big sister and other children but I am glad that you seem to like to play by yourself and be able to entertain yourself.  The other day you probably spent about 20 minutes just taking water from the pool in the backyard and watering the plants around the perimeter.  
• Activities: You like to move things from place to place and you love to have something in each hand whether a book or a toy or some random object.  You love playing with dolls and will carry them around (although you have no interest in stuffed animals). you are really starting to love books and music.  This seemed to take awhile to grow on you and really captivate you but now you will often say "boo"  "boo" (meaning book) and bring them to Daddy or I and ask us to read them to you.  And when you're in the mood, you'll patiently sit on our lap and listen to us read.  You love music and are starting to "sing" to yourself while you are playing, riding in the stroller or on a drive in the car.  You love when we have "dance parties" as a family and you love to move your little body and hands with the music.
• Sleeping: oh you were finally doing so well after almost a year and a half you were almost always successfully sleeping through the night….and then we left you for our trip to Europe.  Who knows if that was the impetus to change things and its only been a week and a half since we got back but you've had a hard time settling down to go to sleep at night, you've been resistant and hit or miss on naps and you've been waking up at night.  But I'm sure, this too shall pass.  I feel much more tired then when Aven was a baby but then I am also juggling two kids and you've kept yourself from sleeping through the night for much longer.  I'm sure that when you are older I'll miss the times that I just held you in the middle of the night snuggling your warm body.

still our snuggly girl 

It is truly a blessing to be able to watch your little healthy body grow and to see you interacting and discovering the world around you.  I only hope that I am molding you into the best version of yourself you can be.  I (we) love you so much little one.